Evaluating the Performance of Ball-Milled Silk Fibroin Films for Simultaneous Adsorption of Eight Pharmaceuticals from Water

Pollutants mainly exist as multicomponent mixtures in the environment. Therefore, it is necessary to synthesize low-cost adsorbents that can simultaneously adsorb multiple compounds. This work presents the prospect of the adsorption of multiclass pharmaceuticals from the aqueous environment using an adsorbent derived from silk fibroin of the wild silkworm Argema mimosae. The adsorbent was prepared by dissolving degummed silk fibroin and the resultant solution was cast to obtain films that were ball-milled to powder. FTIR results revealed bands corresponding to N-H and C=O stretching vibrations. Particle size distribution data generally showed two size groups in the range of 50–90 nm and 250–625 nm. The study focused on the adsorptive removal of multiple compounds consisting of eight pharmaceuticals representing various classes including a β-blocker (pindolol), anesthetic (lidocaine), stimulant (caffeine), antiviral (nevirapine), steroid (estriol), anti-epileptic (carbamazepine), and a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (naproxen). The adsorption process was best fitted to the pseudo-second-order isotherm and an overall match to the Freundlich model. Thermodynamic parameters suggested that the process was mainly exothermic and more spontaneous at lower temperatures. The performance of the adsorbent was further evaluated using environmental waters and the adsorbent demonstrated good potential for simultaneous adsorption of multicomponent pharmaceuticals

Removal of Multi-Class Antibiotic Drugs from Wastewater Using Water-Soluble Protein of <i>Moringa stenopetala</i> Seeds

The removal of ten selected antibiotic drugs belonging to different classes (sulphonamides, fluoroquinolones, macrolides, and tetracycline) was investigated using water-soluble proteins from the seeds of Moringa stenopetala. The surface functional groups of water-soluble protein powder before and after removal of antibiotics were characterized using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR). Processing parameters that could affect the removal efficiency, such as initial analyte concentration, protein dosage, and pH were studied. An optimized method was applied to a real wastewater sample collected from Daspoort Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) located in Pretoria, South Africa. Under optimal conditions, the results indicated good agreement between the efficiency of water-soluble proteins to remove antibiotics from the real wastewater sample and from the synthetic wastewater sample prepared in the laboratory using standard solutions with known concentrations. The percentage of removal under optimum conditions (protein dosage of 40 mg, initial analyte concentration of 0.1 mg L&#8722;1, and pH 7) was between 85.2 &#177; 0.01% and 96.3 &#177; 0.03% for standard mixture solution and from 72.4 &#177; 0.32% to 92.5 &#177; 0.84% and 70.4 &#177; 0.82% to 91.5 &#177; 0.71% for the real wastewater (effluent and influent) sample

Multiclass Pesticide Residue Analysis in Fruit and Vegetable Samples by Combining Acetone-Based Salting-Out Assisted Extraction with Dispersive Liquid-Liquid Microextraction

Isolation and enrichment of multiclass pesticides’ residue, namely, fungicides (benalaxyl), herbicides (atrazine), carbamate insecticides (carbofuran), organophosphate insecticides (chlorpyrifos), organochlorine insecticides (4,4′-DDT), and pyrethroid insecticides (bifenthrin), were made by combining acetone-based salting-out assisted extraction with the dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (SADLLME) method, followed by high-performance liquid chromatography-diode array detection (HPLC-DAD). The effect of the type and volume of the extraction solvent in the pretreatment step, the volume of the disperser solvent (acetone extract), the type and volume of the extraction solvent, pH, and salt addition in the DLLME procedure was studied. Good coefficient of determination (R2 ≥ 0.9964) was obtained for all the target analytes. The limits of detection and quantification limits were between 2.1 and 4.5 and 5.7 and 12.9 µg/kg, respectively, with adequate enrichment factors ranging from 37.6 to 191. The recoveries of spiked blank tomato ranged from 86.8 to 109.5%. The limit of quantification of the proposed method was lower than the maximum residue limits set by the European Union. The repeatability and reproducibility of precisions ranged between 2.9 and 8.0 and 4.9 and 9.5%, respectively. The optimized and validated method was applied to quantify pesticides in tomato, pear, apple, and melon obtained from different markets. However, all target compounds studied in this work were not detected in any real samples applied. Overall, the work results revealed that the proposed method is useful for the sample extraction and preconcentration of the target analytes from fruits and vegetables

Facile solvent-free modified biochar for removal of mixed steroid hormones and heavy metals: isotherm and kinetic studies

Abstract Water contamination has become a global challenge to human survival. Non-biodegradable heavy metal cations and steroid hormones could accumulate in the human body and could result in serious health problems. In this study, we prepared biochar from waste shells of African star apples and modified biochar using a solvent-free ball milling facile method. The X-ray photoelectron spectrometer (XPS) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis revealed biochar functional groups in C=C, C–O, and C=O. Brunauer Emmett Teller (BET) was used to determine the surface area, the surface area of ball-milled biochar obtained at 550 °C (BASA550) increased from 174 m2/g to 304 m2/g after modification. The Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption isotherms best described the experimental adsorption data with RL < 1 and 1/n < 1 and a high degree of agreement of R2 data; Langmuir (R2 = 0.9291–0.9992) and Freundlich (R2 = 0.9077–0.9974). The adsorption kinetic studies using pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order models revealed that the pseudo-second-order model accurately described the adsorption process). The application of the BASA550 for treating wastewater samples showed a good percentage of removal. The removal percentage for cadmium, nickel, and lead was recorded as 92.96%, 90.89%, and 90.29%, respectively. The percentage removal in the influent and effluent were found to be 85.06%, 83.87%, 84.73%, and 89.37%, 86.48%, and 87.40%, respectively. The maximum percentage removal of steroid hormones from ultrapure water ranged from 84.20 to 89.63%, while from the spiked effluent and influent the percentage removal of 78.91–87.81% and 73.58–84.51% were obtained. The reusability of the ball-milled biochar was investigated and the result showed that the adsorbent (BASA550) had a good reusability potential for the first four cycles. Graphical Abstrac